The Blue Highways Journal chronicles the travels and thoughts Jock Lauterer, retired senior lecturer emeritus at the UNC School of Journalism and Media, as he travels his home state and the world observing media usage and society, with a special emphasis on local media, or “community journalism.”

A former community newspaper founding editor-publisher, Lauterer is the author of “Community Journalism, Relentlessly Local,” UNC Press, 3rd. ed. 2006, with translations in Mandarin, Rumanian and Korean.

With apologies to author William Least Heat Moon, this journal takes its name from the classic book that celebrates life off the interstates, off the beaten paths, along the smaller two-lane roads which on traditional ink-on-paper maps used to be indicated by the color blue.

From 2001-2017, Lauterer took his Johnny Appleseed Summer Community Journalism Roadshow (free on-site workshops) to small newspapers from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Outer Banks, as we say in North Carolina: “From Murphy to Manteo.”  In those 17 years, Lauterer conducted workshops at 190 community newspapers across the Old North State. Accounts of those workshops can be found in the Blue Highway Journal archives.

The chronicles of his work in mainland China, 2009-2019, where he taught journalism at universities and media outlets in a dozen cities, can be found under the CHINA heading here.

Most recently, he is sharing in this blog excerpts from his personal long-range project, a collection of photo-meditations for a lost brother, titled, “KEEPER, a Brother’s Restoration,” in which he uses old snapshots and family photos to guide the narrative. A work-in-progress book that employs what he calls “photo-reminiscence therapy.”